Changes Of Language research

Hi, all

I'm part of a small group that's working on a very-early exploratory draft of Programmatic Language for WCAG 3.0. We've been looking at WCAG 2.x’s Language Of Parts criterion and have been trying to find research on changes of language. What we're looking for is research on where a change of language should be identified and where it wouldn't be.

We have been discussing the existing WCAG 2 "words or phrases that have become part of the vernacular of the immediately surrounding text" exception, but we're also wondering about improvements in screen readers, where they can correctly pronounce words based on their context of use. For example: without any extra markup, VoiceOver correctly changes the pronunciation of the word "resume" in the sentence "I asked Charlotte to send me her resume; I asked Paul to resume work".

As technology improves, are there cases where changes in language don't need to be marked up?


  1.  "I do like a nice croissant for breakfast" [is croissant part of the vernacular?];
  2.  "There's nothing I like more with my afternoon coffee than a stroopwafel"  [is stroopwafel part of the vernacular? If it isn’t, does the fact that a screen reader pronounces it well negate the word needing to be marked up as Dutch?];
  3.  "I went to France and travelled on a TGV" [where TGV is an abbreviation of Train à Grande Vitesse—should the abbreviation be marked up as French?];
  4.  "The Latin name for the lavender genus is Lavandula" [should Latin words be marked up as Latin? Very few are part of the vernacular];
  5.  A blog post offering a cheat sheet for English speakers to help with ordering at French restaurants<https://www.foodrepublic.com/2011/07/14/100-french-fooddrink-words-and-phrases/> [does the context of the article—that it’s an instructional aid—make it more important to mark up the French phrases as being in French?]

If anyone is aware of any research in this area, we would be very interested in it.

Many thanks

Francis Storr